Conventionally, in electronic devices such as portable telephones, a printed circuit substrate is installed internally and electronic parts such as camera modules are attached to the printed circuit substrate. Since electronic parts that are heat-sensitive cannot be attached directly with solder, a socket for attaching electronic parts such as shown in FIG. 14 is used for connecting the part to the printed circuit substrate.
The prior art electronic part attachment socket 1 is equipped with a socket housing 3 including an electronic part housing section 2 surrounded by a perimeter wall projected from the four sides of a rectangular bottom plate; and multiple contacts 5, 5 that include an elastic contact piece 5a that elastically forms a contact with the terminals of an electronic part 4, e.g., a camera module or a semiconductor element. The electronic part 4, e.g., a camera module, is supported in the electronic part housing section 2 so that the terminals of the electronic part 4 come into contact with the elastic contact pieces 5a of the contacts 5, thus providing an electrical connection with a printed circuit substrate 6 by way of the contacts 5.
Also, the electronic part attachment socket 1 is equipped with a metal securing piece 7 including an elastic support piece 7a projecting from the perimeter walls. When the electronic part 4 is inserted into the electronic part housing section 2 while pushing open the elastic support pieces 7a, the ends of the elastic support pieces 7a are elastically restored and engage with the upper edge of the electronic part 4 so that the electronic part 4 is attached in the electronic part holding section 2. For example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication Number 2003-092168 discloses a conventional housing.
However, in the conventional technology described above, the installation space needed for the metal securing piece led to an increased thickness in the perimeter walls of the socket housing, making it difficult to achieve a compact design.
Also, even if electronic parts have the same terminal arrangement and outer dimensions, if their heights are different, i.e., the height of the section where the elastic support pieces of the metal securing pieces engage, then it is necessarily to form different metal securing tools, socket housings, and shield members that increases production costs.
The object of the present invention is to overcome these problems of the conventional technology and to provide an electronic part attachment socket that is inexpensive, that allows a compact design, and that allows parts to be shared.